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Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 03:22:46 -0800 (PST)
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Subject: Re: Imaging libraries in active development?
From: Alasdair McAndrew <amca01@gmail.com>
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Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:34062

Thanks for the heads-up about OpenCV.  I have in fact briefly looked at Ope=
nCV (well, the documentation), and it does seem remarkably complete.  And w=
hat it doesn't provide, such as image transforms (FFT, DCT etc), are offere=
d elsewhere by other Python libraries.

Probably the combinations of OpenCV, Scipy.ndimage and scikits-image would =
cover pretty much all of my needs.

Thanks,
Alasdair=20
> Hey Alasdair,
>=20
>=20
>=20
> I believe OpenCV might do the trick for you:
>=20
> - it contains everything you seem to need (+ much much more);
>=20
> - it is efficient;
>=20
> - it is cross-platform;
>=20
> - it has a usable python interface since version 2.4;
>=20
> - it is not going away any time soon and is constantly improved;
>=20
> - it has an active user base.
>=20
>=20
>=20
> But (there is always a but), it also has some issues:
>=20
> - (the main one for me) documentation is often incomplete or even=20
>=20
> sometimes cryptic: the website (http://docs.opencv.org/) is great, but,=
=20
>=20
> IIRC, the docstrings are automatically generated from the C++ prototypes=
=20
>=20
> using Boost.Python; some trial & error is often necessary to find out=20
>=20
> what the parameters of a function should be;
>=20
> - it may be overkill if you just want to do some basic image processing=
=20
>=20
> (maybe scikits-image is a better choice there?).
>=20
>=20
>=20
> Hope this helps,
>=20
>=20
>=20
> Adrien
>=20
>=20
>=20
> Le 29/11/2012 07:53, Alasdair McAndrew a =E9crit :
>=20
> > I take your point that not being actively developed doesn't necessarily=
 mean that the software is bad - but in general healthy software is continu=
ously updated and expanded to meet the needs of its users, or to take advan=
tage of new algorithms or hardware.
>=20
> >
>=20
> > And in its current form PIL has a number of limitations: it doesn't all=
ow linear filters of arbitrary size or shape, or non-linear filters (such a=
s median filter) of arbitrary size. There doesn't seem to be built in suppo=
rt for standard imaging filters: Gaussian, Laplacian, LoG, edge detection, =
unsharp masking and so on.  It doesn't seem to have support for color space=
 conversions (RGB, YIQ, HSV etc).  There don't seem to be standard edge det=
ection routines (Laplacian of Gaussian, Canny, etc).  And so on.  Now maybe=
 some of these can be found in other Python libraries, but I can't imagine =
I'm the only person who would ever want them in an imaging library.  Other =
libraries (scipy.ndimage, scikits-image) do go a long way to addressing my =
concerns.
>=20
> >
>=20
> > Anyway, I was curious to know why PIL is lacking so much of what I woul=
d consider fairly fundamental imaging facilities, and why development seems=
 to have stalled since 2009.
>=20
> >
>=20
> > On Thursday, 29 November 2012 05:14:30 UTC+11, Michael Torrie  wrote:
>=20
> >> On 11/28/2012 05:30 AM, Alasdair McAndrew wrote:
>=20
> >>
>=20
> >>> I'm investigating Python for image processing (having used Matlab,
>=20
> >>> then Octave for some years).  And I'm spoiled for choice: PIL and its
>=20
> >>> fork pillow, scipy.ndimage, scikits-image, mahotas, the Python
>=20
> >>> interface to openCV...
>=20
> >>> However, PIL doesn't seem to be in active development.  What I want
>=20
> >>> to know is - what are the current "standard" libraries for image
>=20
> >>> processing in Python which are in active development?
>=20
> >>> I have quite a few image processing student notes which I'm thinking
>=20
> >>> of converting to Python, but I'd like to use the most up-to-date
>=20
> >>> library.
>=20
> >>
>=20
> >>
>=20
> >> I'm curious.  What features do you need that pil doesn't have?  Other
>=20
> >>
>=20
> >> than updating pil to fix bugs, support new image types or new versions
>=20
> >>
>=20
> >> of Python, what kind of active development do you think it needs to
>=20
> >>
>=20
> >> have? Maybe pil has all the features the original author wanted and is
>=20
> >>
>=20
> >> pretty stable.  To judge a package on how fast it's changing seems a b=
it
>=20
> >>
>=20
> >> odd to me.  Obviously you want to know that bugs can get fixed of
>=20
> >>
>=20
> >> course.  Perhaps none have been reported recently.